'98 V70 GLT Transmission problems...

[bmdubya1198]

I can't believe I didn't think of this, but one of my positive battery cables has a bad lug. I plan on replacing that anyway, but could that have anything to do with the lack of communication between VOL-FCR and the ECUs?

[bmdubya1198]

Anyone? This forum seems to be slowing down...

I checked the grounds under the passenger side headlight, and everything looks good. I am going to take apart the covering again this weekend and check all of the visible wires to make sure everything it properly attached.

[bmdubya1198]

Checked the ground wires more carefully, they are all connected. There is damage to the coating, but the actual wire is connected properly. I'm out of ideas.

[bmdubya1198]

Good news!
I hooked up VOL-FCR to the car for the first time a couple of weeks today, and I was finally able to connect to M44. I got three codes, one for the purge valve, one for the SAS pump, and one for the front O2 sensor. All of which appeared when I scanned for codes with my regular OBD-II scanner on Torque.
I went over each button on the program again, and the only ones that DO NOT work are immobilizer, RTI, Service Light Reset, and AW50-42 petrol. Power seat left is intermittent, and I could not get the codes (the battery was dying, I had it on the jumper box). I didn't try the right power seat as I do not have a power passenger seat. And, of course, I didn't try the Fenix or MSA EFI or AW50-42 diesel options.
Obviously, I have done something to get the OBD to communicate with the ECU, though I could still get the regular OBD codes before. Not sure why I could get them that way, but not through Motronic 4.4 on VOL-FCR.
So, the bad part is that I still haven't been able to communicate with the transmission, which is what I am most concerned about at this time. I'll worry about the instruments, immobilizer, etc. afterwards, even though I'll probably solve that problem while repairing the connections with the TCM. I think at this point, it comes down to sorting through each wire and making sure they are connected.

[bmdubya1198]

I re-tied a few wires today, and I still can't connect to the transmission. I replaced the PNP switch, nothing. Yes, the reverse lights were on, so it was aligned. I might try opening up the old one and cleaning it, but I don't know how that could have been bad if there's no difference. Granted, it's a used switch, but I'm sure it's fine.
I am absolutely out of ideas of how I can fix the communication issue between the TCU and VOL-FCR. The only 3 things I can't access are AW50-42 petrol, instruments (service light reset included), and Power Seat Left (although there is a different warning/message about that one).
I hate to sound rude, but can someone please speak up who may know? Understandably, I'm a bit frustrated. I'd rather not have to replace the entire engine wiring harness, but if that's what it takes, I may have to do that. I'd rather hear any other suggestions before I have to mess around with something so big.

[esl_97_850_T5]

Is your battery very old?
Or does your battery retain a charge fairly well?
Can you do 15-20 minutes of diagnostic testing without having to put a charger on the battery?

Have you used "Task Manager" (Ctrl-Shift-Esc) on Windows to verify that there is not any culprit "CPU hog" which might be disrupting the Vol-FCR's capability to complete an ISO 9141-2 5-baud Slow Init connection? In other words, have you temporarily disabled realtime virus scanning (and any unnecessary background processes) while you are doing your time critical ISO 9141-2 5-baud Slow Init connection? Got any unnecessary programs still running? Got any unnecessary browser tabs still open? etc, etc...

What scan tool alternatives have you tried besides Vol-FCR with VAG/COM KKL cable and Torque Android app with Bluetooth ELM327 device?

Have you used any terminal emulators to manually issue the ELM327 commands and KWPD3B0 requests yourself? For example, have you downloaded either ScanTool.net's STNterm for use on Windows? Or have you installed ElmBasic / Elm Basic from Google Play for use on Android? Or have you installed either of the other two capable ELM327 terminal emulators for use on Android?

Have you verified that your Bluetooth ELM327 responds with "OK" -- and nothing else -- when the following commands are issued either to STNterm (on Windows) or ElmBasic (on Android):

ATH1
ATAL
ATTA 13
ATRA 13
ATIIA 6E
ATWM 82 6E 13 A1
ATSH 83 6E 13

On ElmBasic I suggest you eliminate the spaces, so you can save each line as a "word" in the virtual keyboard. That makes re-typing them faster.

You can type them in upper case, lower case, or mixed case.

If the ATIIA 6E does not respond with "OK", then there's absolutely no way you'll ever be able to use your ELM327 device to connect to COMBI and AW 50-42 for the purpose of performing KWPD3B0 communication like Vol-FCR and Brick-Diag Free v0.0.6.6 do. You'll need to buy a proper ELM327 device that has v1.4 functionality (and responds "OK" to each of the 7 AT commands above).

Have you acquired Brick-Diag Free v0.0.6.6 from http://forum.volvo-forum.de/ like you said here you were going to do? Brick-Diag Free v0.0.6.6 does not enforce some of the ISO 9141-2 timing constraints as forcefully as Vol-FCR does. It may be able to connect to a particular ECU using the VAG/COM KKL cable when Vol-FCR can not successfully connect. To get you headed in the right direction, search for "How to download Brick-Diag Free Beta v0.0.6.6" on the
"Volvo 850 Diagnostic Links" page.

If you want an Android app which can do some of what Vol-FCR can do and even do things which Vol-FCR can not do, then you'll want to eventually check out XantheFIN's "Volvo 850 OBD-II" Android app. The last I saw it was up to version *BETA4*. It's still a work-in-progress, but is already quite useful. It can connect to AW 50-42, read/clear its DTCs, and display its essential LIVE data. It can also connect to the COMBI, read/clear its DTCs, display its LIVE data, display vehicle mileage, display Service interval counters and limits, and reprogram the Service interval limits. It can display the OBDII emission diagnostic LIVE data and the SRS LIVE data. [I've personally found its LIVE data functions to be quite useful.] It interprets the DTCs much like kwpd3b0_interpreter interprets them, but it does the interpretation in realtime -- like a scan tool should do. You don't have to submit the raw data to a server based interpreter like you do with volvo850diag / kwpd3b0_interpreter. Its Scan function works well on my COMBI, ABS, and AW 50-42, but some of the other ECU connections still need debugging (in *BETA4*). It displays a useful Summary. To repeat: It's still a work-in-progress, still "a little rough around the edges", not yet ready for Google Play. But it's already useful. For your case, bmdubya1198, you might be able to use its Scan function or LIVE data function to connect with COMBI and/or AW 50-42. It's worth a try if XantheFIN will let you have a BETA copy. XantheFIN's "Volvo 850 OBD-II" Android app requires an ELM327-compatible device that is functionally equivalent to an ELM327 v1.4. All of the 7 AT commands listed earlier **MUST** respond with "OK" for his app to work.

If you use any of the terminal emulators and you get sick and tired of typing commands into a terminal emulator, or you're like me and make way too many mistakes, and you want ultimate control over what is sent to your car, you might want to check out volvo850diag by downloading jonesrh.info/volvo850/volvo850diag.zip, extracting, following the setup instructions, click "Start Realterm", "Full Scan All ECUs", "Close Realterm", find the log that was produced, copy its contents into the "Paste..." box at jonesrh.info/volvo850/kwpd3b0_interpreter.html, click "Interpret". There's been at least several times that people have not been able to connect with Vol-FCR, but they could connect with volvo850diag. In my experience, volvo850diag establishes connections with my 850's ECUs better than any of the above programs. So you might want to consider it for your V70 just for that reason alone.

Any of the above might reveal a separate piece to your V70 diagnostic puzzle.

See this jagrullar.se post and prior posts by XantheFIN to see some more info about his app, a way to contact him (if you join that forum), some info on mikeri's milageread Python-based app, and some info on volvo850diag. [That post and some of the surrounding posts are in English, but the beginning portion of that thread is in Swedish as is the rest of that site. So if you want to explore the whole thread, you might want to switch to Google Chrome so it can automatically translate for you.]

All questions in this post are rhetorical. No need to answer them here if you're not inclined.

esl_97_850_T5

[Edit: Added the battery questions in the beginning, reworded several places for clarity, and completely removed the description of mikeri's milageread Python program and how it could be converted to read AW 50-42 DTCs, since there were way too many errors in that description.]

[bmdubya1198]

Thank you so much for your fast response, esl_97_850_T5. You've been extremely helpful through this process, and I want to thank you for that.
I have registered with that German Volvo forum, and I am waiting for the moderator to accept my registration. I thought I had remembered trying to register before, and obviously I had and it didn't go through because it wouldn't take my email, so I had to use a masking application. I guess I had tried to do that before for my cousin's car, which is a '99 and probably wouldn't have worked anyway.
I downloaded that ELMBasic app on my phone, and I will try that this week, and I'll let you know what happens.
To answer your battery question, yes, it is dead. I cannot even use anything without hooking it up to a charger. I replaced the broken lug on the battery cable yesterday, and I will try to get to the pick a part on Saturday to get one of their reconditioned batteries. According to Torque, my car is running between 13 and 14 volts at idle, warmed up. Within 10 minutes of the car being turned off after running for about 5-10 minutes, the battery is totally dead. I could definitely see that being a problem, but as usual, I totally overlooked the most simple solutions.
I have the volvo850diag program, but I have not tried it out with my VAG/COM cable. I will try that out once I replace the battery to see if I can get through to the car that way. I am hopeful again that I can get this done in another weekend.
I'll update this thread if and when I finally find a solution.

[esl_97_850_T5]

bmdubya1198,

1. Great to see you're getting a usable battery.
Don't waste your time (or ours) with car diagnostics until you get the battery fixed.

2. volvo850diag v0.7 does ***NOT*** work with a VAG/COM KKL cable!!!!!!
You will have 0% chance of your volvo850diag v0.7 working with VAG/COM KKL.

volvo850diag works only with an ELM327-compatible device that is functionally equivalent to ELM327 v1.4.

Conversely, Vol-FCR and Brick-Diag Free v0.0.6.6 work with VAG/COM KKL, but **NOT** with ELM327 devices.

3. In preparation for the testing, increase your Bluetooth device's timer that triggers a Low Power shutdown to conserve power, if you have such a capability. Increase it to 10 minutes or higher, if possible. Read the user manual for your device. Alternatively, just observe how long it takes before the Low Power shutdown occurs. That will tell you how much time you can go with no activity before it may disrupt your testing.

4. Let us know how your Bluetooth ELM327 (or any ELM327 device which you have) responds to these commands.

The following, first group of AT commands can be performed with the key *out of* the ignition, with the key in the ignition but the ignition off, with the ignition at pos II, or with the engine on. It's your choice. However, I prefer you perform this initial setup portion of the test with the key *out of* the ignition.

[NOTE: I've included spaces in the commands/requests in a way which is natural for me to remember. Also, I've used upper case characters. But keep in mind the ELM327 is both case insensitive and it ignores all spaces. So I suggest you type everything in lower case, since that's easier. More importantly, I suggest you do not use spaces in your Android-based ELM327 terminal emulator. If you type the lines without spaces, you'll be able to save each line as a "word" in your app's virtual keyboard word memory. That's very handy for any subsequent time that you need to enter the longer commands that are prone to typing errors.]

ATZ
ATL1
ATE1
ATI
AT@1
ATRV
ATRV
ATDP
ATSP 3
ATDP
ATH1
ATAL
ATKW0
ATTA 13
ATRA 13
ATIIA 51
ATWM 82 51 13 A1

If any of the above (accurately typed) commands responded with '?', ie, a question mark, then stop now, proceed no further with the remaining commands/requests, and post the results in this thread.

If the "ATIIA 51" command did **not** respond with "OK", then stop now, proceed no further with the remaining commands/requests, and post the results in this thread.

If the "ATIIA 51" command responded exactly like the ATI command did, then stop now, proceed no further with the remaining commands/requests, and post the results in this thread.

If you made it this far, then you likely have an ELM327 device which is functionally equivalent to an ELM327 v1.4. So continue, and issue:

ATSI

Wait for 5-6 seconds. After about 3 seconds, if you still have your key out of the ignition or if you have the key in but the ignition off, then you'll see the following message:

BUS INIT: ...ERROR

Of course, the reason why is that the ignition is off. The reason I've chosen to explain the commands this way is so you see that a very, very common source of "BUS INIT: ...ERROR" situations is forgetting to turn the ignition to pos II.

So put the key in the ignition and turn it to pos II or else turn the engine on -- your choice. From here on out, you need to be at ignition pos II or the engine needs to be on.

Now, hit the Enter key so the previous command -- the ATSI command -- is executed again. [HINT: This facility of an ELM327 to repeat the latest line sometimes comes in handy and saves some time.]

Alternatively, you can explicitly type the ATSI command again, then hit Enter.

Hopefully, after 3-4 seconds you see that ElmBasic has finished displaying the message:

BUS INIT: ...OK

If the ATSI response (when ignition pos II or engine on) said anything other than "BUS INIT: ...OK", you would normally try to figure out what the error is. But since this is our first time trying to talk to your car with the ELM327, let's wait another 5-6 seconds to let the car ECUs timeout from any connection activities. Then continue, issuing each of the following AT commands and KWPD3B0 requests:

ATSH 83 51 13
AE01

If you see another message beginning "BUS INIT", then wait for 5-6 seconds, then issue:

B903
ATPC
ATRV

Now, let's take a breather. All (or almost all) of the AT commands, KWPD3B0 requests (AE01 and B903), and both of their typical responses can be seen at ELM327 ECU 51 commands & responses example (with links). If you are failing to get any responses to any of the commands and requests, then stop now, proceed no further with the remaining commands/requests, and post the results back here.

Otherwise, if you've been getting responses -- even if they are error responses -- continue with these final few commands:

ATIIA 6E
ATWM 82 6E 13 A1
ATSH 83 6E 13
AE01

Wait for 5-6 seconds for the "BUS INIT: ...OK", followed by the message containing raw AW 50-42 DTC code(s), if any. Then continue and issue:

ATPC
ATIIA 2E
ATWM 82 2E 13 A1
ATSH 83 2E 13
AE01

Wait for 5-6 seconds for the "BUS INIT: ...OK", followed by the message containing the raw Power Seat Left DTC code(s). Then continue and issue these OBDII emission diagnostics oriented commands:

ATZ
ATL1
ATE1
ATH1
0100

Wait for 5-6 seconds for the "BUS INIT: ...OK", followed by 1-2 lines of OBDII emission diagnostic info. Ideally, you'll get a "...41 00..." response line from the TCM (AW 50-42) and a "...41 00..." response line from the ECM (Motronic 4.4 in your case).

Now continue and issue:

0101
03
07
0105
010C
ATZ

Report back here or post the entire commands/requests/responses sequence into the "Paste..." box at kwpd3b0_interpreter.html. We'll analyze that info and proceed from there.

5. Does your Windows laptop have Bluetooth capability?

If yes, I suggest you use STNterm to perform the item 4 test, since it's easier, you almost never have to type the AT of the ATxxxx commands, and, most importantly, it has a log whose contents you can easily copy and paste into the "Paste..." box at jonesrh.info/volvo850/kwpd3b0_interpreter.html.

If you use STNterm, you'll need to specifically select your COM port # and specifically select your speed (which is normally 38400 for most Bluetooth ELM327 devices, but is 115200 for the ScanTool.net Bluetooth devices). Then you'll need to adapt the instructions to use:

ATL0
ATE0

anywhere the ATLn and ATEn command are used.

I find it to be easier than any other ELM327 terminal emulator that I have used.

esl_97_850_T5

[bmdubya1198]

I now have Brick-Diag from the German Volvo forum. Pretty cool program. I'll have to read over everything a little more, but it looks fairly straightforward. Like I said, I'm getting a battery on Saturday, so that's when I'll be able to scan the car properly, using all of the programs/methods listed until I can get results.

[esl_97_850_T5]

bmdubya1198,

1. I go through the Brick-Diag Free diagnostic sequence:

- plug in VAG/COM KKL cable into car's OBDII port, then into my laptop,

- turn ignition to pos II (so I don't forget to later),

- run Brick-Diag Free v0.0.6.6,

- select Sprache / English as language,

- paste in VIN for my car (from a place where I store the VIN just for this "Brick-Diag Free pasting" purpose -- I hate typing it and having to check for errors),

- verify "platform", "model", "year", "model year" are correct,

- change "transmission" from M56 to "AW 50-42",

- change "engine name" so all my ECUs appear [eg, for my '97 850 T5, I change "B5234T" to "B5234T5" for the Power Seats to appear],

- (the first time) verify displacement, power, and torque(Nm) are close enough.

You can also manually select the ECUs by clicking on the vertical yellow-on-blue "m a n u a l >" button on the left side. But if you do that, be sure to click on the "m a n u a l >" button again to hide those selections and display the logging box again.

Make sure your list of ECUs in the lower left box makes sense.

In your case, bmdubya1198 -- since you are having problems with connecting to COMBI and AW 50-42 -- be especially diligent to ensure the correct "instruments..." ECU is displayed (ie, VDO, Yazaki, etc) and ensure the correct auto transmission ECU is displayed, then you can select one of them. Then on the "communication" tab, click "connect". If you connect successfully you'll see that panel fill in with the Hardware/Software info. Then you can click the "error codes" tab and read/clear the DTCs.

However, really I suggest you defer connecting to "instruments..." and "AW50-42" for the time being. First, use Brick-Diag Free to connect with all the ECUs which you have already connected to at least once with Vol-FCR. Read each of their "error codes". Make sure you can at least do the same things with Brick-Diag Free that you've been able to do so far with Vol-FCR.

Then try "instruments...", whichever one is applicable to your car.

2. If you don't first use volvo850diag / ELM327 to read the DTCs before you experiment with Brick-Diag Free and inevitably end of clearing the DTCs, could you at least make window snapshots (using PrntScrn or something similar) to record what Brick-Diag Free reports as your DTCs?

Those window snapshots could serve as a really good guide for how to use Brick-Diag Free v0.0.6.6.

3. Note: You will *NOT* be able to clear the SERVICE light with Brick-Diag Free v0.0.6.6. Even though it might be able to access your COMBI, the SERVICE light reset function is disabled in Brick-Diag Free.

For the SERVICE light reset you can use volvo850diag (with ELM327 device) using volvo850diag's "ATZ Reset SRI" function. The advantage of doing it that way is that the volvo850diag log will automatically record your before and after values of the Service Reminder Interval counters and limits.

Alternatively, you can use a terminal emulator to issue all the commands/requests necessary to perform the SERVICE light reset. I don't recommend that approach due to the possibility / probability of making errors when issuing the B0xx / B2xx requests. But that is something that you might be able to fall back to if nothing else works. On Windows, the easiest terminal emulator for this purpose is STNterm. On Android, any of the 3 available ELM327 terminal emulators will do the trick.

And, probably most convenient, if you get your hands on it is: XantheFIN's "Volvo 850 OBD-II" Android app. With the latest copy I have of it, you use a sequence like: plug in your Bluetooth ELM327 (v1.4 capable) device into the car's OBDII port, power up your Android device, pair to your Bluetooth device, run XantheFIN's app, click "Service", "COMBI+", "Connect", "Reset Service Light". Or something similar to that. Quick and easy.

esl_97_850_T5